Reaction

im Goodwin’s side wanted to bounce back after the disappointment of losing to East Fife 2-1 in midweek, at this stage of the season there are no easy games as teams push for the chance to gain a Play-Off spot or move away from the relegation places. “The Wasps” had a great chance to snatch the opening goal as early as the first minute but visiting keeper Willie Muir saved well to keep the ball out on two attempts. However on 22 minutes Iain Flannigan gave the home side the lead his seventh goal of this campaign.

Seven minutes later the impressive Dale Carrick headed home the equalising goal and five minutes later the game could have turned on its head when Ryan Conroy had the opportunity to put Airdrie in front after Neil Parry had fouled Darryl Duffy in the box. Man of the Match, birthday boy Kevin Cawley then gave “The Wasps” a deserved lead five minutes before half-time, 2-1 to Alloa.
Jordan Kirkpatrick then had another great chance to extend “The Wasps” lead as the first half drew to a close, but Willie Muir again saved the effort.

Airdrie started the second half on the front foot and Alloa seemed to get deeper and deeper, and 13 minutes into the second half Darryl Duffy scored the equalising goal.

Alloa then bossed the closing quarter of the game with great chances to go back in front – Callum Crane hit an an audacious shot from 40 yards which dipped in the wind and crashed off the cross bar.

Ross Stewart also had two fantastic chances, initially rounding keeper Willie Muir and looking to put ball in net before a fantastic last dtich challenge by David Brownlie saved the day for Airdrie.

Ross Stewart then had a header saved on the line low down at the post as Jim Goodwin’s men looked for the winner and edge closer to a Play-Off spot.

Airdrie defended for their life with calls for “Holding in the box” against several of their defenders. On the day hoever a draw was probably a fair result with both sides set to play each other again on Tuesday evening.

jim goodwin on home draw against airdrieonians

Frustrated after taking the lead twice and only taking one point, although the thing is we bounced back from the disappointing result against East Fife on Tuesday evening.

I thought we started the game ever so well and Jordan Kirkpatrick had a great opportunity in the opening minute of the game which could of put us one up. The first half I was really pleased we had a number of good opportunities and probably could have scored another couple of goals. The message at half-time was just to go out and do more of the same, Airdrie were always dangerous on the break, we spoke about that before the game, they have good players in the attacking areas that can hurt you and they have decent pace in their team. I thought we managed them particularly well in the first half but we never really started the second half, that was the most frustrating thing for me – so intead of going out and doing the same again we do the polar opposite, Stephen Findlay was obviously looking for a reaction from his players and we expected them to come out better than they had in the first half but at the same time I think we need to be better, to sit back and try and defend for ten or eleven minutes it was inevitable that the goal was coming. It was decent goal from Airdrie’s point of view but a poor one from our point of view – Duffy gets the ball far too easy in and around our eighteen yard box a great finish from him but we could do a lot more in the build up to the goal.

We keep going and had opportunities again, as the game went on I thought we finished the game the stronger, it looked as if anybody was going to win the game it probably was going to be us – Callum Crane hits the crossbar from 40 yards, Ross Stewart had a header from a couple of yards out and there were other bits and pieces but probably overall a draw was the correct result.

Airdrie are a good team and we will face them again on Tuesday night it will be another difficult game so I will plan for another game similar to today, we are hopeful that Scott Taggart only suffered a knock, he will come in and see the physio either tomorrow or Monday and we will assess his fitness, but he wasn’t in any great pain after the game it was just the initial dunt but we expect “Taggs” to be ok.